“Emotions course through the veins, engage the heart and the lungs, the bowels and the genitals, the muscles, the skin and face.” (Rose/Abi-Rached, 230)

The physical reactions of the non-physical…can emotions be mapped in the blood even if they can’t be found in the brains? My heart stops and my lungs contract and my muscles ready themselves for the chase whenever I look at love, my veins quicken and quiver with excitement, but I have the same reaction when I look at hate…so far removed and yet so close. Does my body recognize the nuances of difference or only the heat of the response? My face is the only thing that changes and that is cultural conditioning, not something written in my bones and blood.

Word count: 101

“Lombroso’s catalogue of physical deformities and anomalies of behavior…laziness, frivolity, use of argot, tendency to adorn body and surroundings with hieroglyphics, moral insensibility, and emotional instability.” (Rose/Abi-Rached, 170)

Tattoos spelling out a destiny they don’t remember, a life they never knew and cannot have…the slang of another time and place firmly planted in the lexicon without knowing the source, bread for money, raspberry tarts and glass bottles, cats marking their territory with paint rather than scent—can you find your own way home or do you need a map that no one can read anymore? Laziness and frivolity in spades, I would share with you but I need it all for myself. Emotions are running hot and bothered and my morality is severely lacking in fortitude and grace.  The stakes are high but my expectations are low.

Word count:  108

“What is in our nature is the fact that we humans are born incomplete, requiring interaction with others, and enmeshing in language, meaning, and culture, to be completed…we are not born, but become social.”  (Rose/Abi-Rached, 142)

Monkeys with wire cages for mothers, Romanian babies, feral children, Victorian orphanages, Jodi Foster, Genie, the Jungle Books, the founding of ancient Rome, Ramachandra.  It is a problem if your mother didn’t hug you enough; likewise, it is a problem if she hugged you too much.  Why are tales of orphans so popular? Lack of parental guidance, some children would be better off. The Boxcar Children were polite and properly socialized, but they got to keep their glass bottled milk in a brook, too bad Violet was sickly and ruined it for everyone. Lord of the Flies. How quickly we revert back to our natural(?) states when there isn’t proper dinnerware available.